The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches

by Cheryl Potter

  “Skye?” Warren asked with a frown. “She seems too young. She prefers hair ribbons to magic.” Fingering the scrap of bloody silk in his mitt, Warren did not mention that he had found Averill.

  Sierra shrugged. “Skye has no power to use cold-fire crystals. She has not learned the lore. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Yet? What do you mean, yet?”

  “I expect you will see your sister when we reach Bordertown,” Sierra sighed. “I have seen her, and your brother Garth, in my mind’s eye. They have been wending their way north in the company of Esmeralde and Indigo Rose.”

  “My sister is a knitting witch?” Warren asked. “My baby brother, too?”

  Sierra shook her head. “The power of the Twelve passes only from mother to daughter, or aunt to niece.”

  “What about someone like Mae?”

  “If there is no female heir, the dye mistress is free to appoint a girl child as a ward,” Sierra replied, unsurprised at his ignorance. “Your sister is not ready to become one of the Twelve, but she may have to act as one.” She gave Warren a wry smile, indicating herself and Mae. “Some of us are missing.”

  Mae twitched away once more, with an exhausted cry of discomfort. Sierra gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “I know,” she murmured to Mae. “I feel it too, but less so in my cloak.” Holding the glowing crystal before her, she turned toward the cavern from which she had come. “You will feel better if we start walking in the right direction. Come this way.”

  “Wait,” Warren warned, recalling the rumor that Aubergine was in league with the Guard. “What if this summons is a trap? Do you know why you are called?”

  “At this late date, I can barely hazard a guess,” Sierra admitted. “We expected to be summoned long ago.”

  “I may know why,” Warren said, recalling the stones he had pilfered from Mae’s lair. “Perhaps Aubergine has called you because she has learned what I just found out from Mae.”

  “Mae?” Sierra asked.

  Frightened, Mae buried her face in Sierra’s skirt. “Mae,” she squeaked.

  Stroking Mae’s head, Sierra asked, “What is it?”

  “The Lowlanders have discovered the passage to the ancients.” Warren’s eyes blazed. “Mother, the Crystal Caves are real. The Dark Queen’s toadies are grave robbers who desecrate and plunder First Folk tombs. I have proof in my rucksack. And Mae has seen the broken coffin lids with her own eyes.”

  “Oh, I know the Caves have been breached.” Sierra gave Mae a sidelong glance. “They’ve been breached for a long time, haven’t they, dear?”

  Mae hung her head. “Mae,” she quavered.

  “I saw a First Folk dervish circling the glacier outside the Burnt Holes this morning,” Sierra continued. “The Lowland raiders you mention must have stolen it from an ancient’s tomb to offer as a prize to Tasman.” She smiled with satisfaction. “But it escaped somehow. A dervish is will always seek out its First Folk family.”

  “What’s a dervish?”

  “According to legend, the dervish was a winged beast raised by ancient royalty. Every family of royal lineage harbored one for protection. Common folk called such familiars Watchers. When the last descendant of a line died with no heir, the dervish was buried along with its family, to watch over its members as they slipped into the land of dreams.”

  “Dervish,” Mae nodded.

  “That’s right,” Sierra said. “One does not see one every day.”

  Mae took another involuntary step toward the corridor and Sierra grabbed her arm to pull her back into the cavern. “The call grows stronger,” she said, leading Mae along. “Come, we have to go.”

  “How will we ever find our way out?” Warren asked, trailing behind. He pointed back toward the corridor. “She wants to go that way,” he lifted his chin. “You lead us this way.”

  Mae gave him a blank stare and patted her pouch.

  “Mae’s got her crystals, to guide her through the glacier,” Sierra explained. She hiked up her long skirt to reveal the knee socks that barely showed above her boots. “My secret socks know another way through the caves.” She whispered to Mae, “My path is faster.”

  Warren hooted with laughter. “Her shards of broken rock and your magic knits argue with each other?”

  Sierra shrugged. “My socks are knit from fiber spun from the ruff of the alpine musk ox, then dyed with ground crystals and the shells of glacier insects. The combination of red ocher and cochineal will never steer you wrong.”

  “Sorry I asked.” Warren took the crystal his mother handed him. “There’s our path.” She pointed toward the cavern from which she had come. “We’ll leave through the Burnt Holes. It’s quicker.”

  Warren stopped short. “Mother, the Burnt Holes are a prison. You escaped only hours ago, and I’m a wanted man. Maybe we should heed the advice of Mae’s crystals.”

  “This passage is faster,” Sierra said. “And we are short on time.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Warren countered.

  “Not now, for after they saw the dervish all the soldiers fled back to Bordertown.” Sierra fingered the hood of her traveling cloak. Mae cackled and patted the bulging pouch hanging from her neck.

  Warren backed away. “Do not use your magic knits on me, either of you,” he warned. “I will follow on my own.”

  Sierra waited until they had safely picked their way through the cavern before she released Mae’s arm. To her relief, Mae skipped ahead happily. “You keep saying you are wanted,” she mentioned to her son. “What did you do?”

  “I deserted my unit,” Warren replied. “A few of the other scouts saw Mae scavenging their dead in a valley and vowed to kill her. I guessed who she was, so I slipped away to warn her.”

  “No soldier can kill her,” Sierra said gravely, watching Mae.

  “I wish I’d known that.”

  “I suspect that Aubergine is not calling us to the Potluck because the Lowlanders have gotten into the Caves,” Sierra said. “Although that surely has something to do with why she summoned us. I’m not sure, but perhaps Mae holds the key.”

  Mae skipped back. “No, no, no,” she sang. “Mae Mae, Mamie.”

  “And Mamie as well,” Sierra agreed.

  “For the longest time, I thought she was just repeating her own name,” Warren said, as they picked their way along a narrow ledge and began to climb a set of stairs cut into yellowed ice.

  “No,” Sierra shook her head. “She calls for Mamie Verde, just as the First Folk do inside her head.”

  “Why?” Warren asked. “What would the ancients want with Mae or Mamie, or any of you?”

  “I don’t know,” Sierra replied. “Mamie Verde was The Keeper of the Tales before me, and those at the Potluck believed that she revealed all for safekeeping. As it turned out, there was a Lost Tale that Mamie never uttered aloud. It’s called The Guardian of the Crystal Caves.”

  “Who else knows this tale?”

  “Supposedly Mamie related it to her maid, Ratta, in the same language the ancients use.” They mounted yet another narrow set of stairs. “I believe it is called Mind Speak.”

  “The Lowlanders talk that way as well,” Warren said. “I’ve seen them. They move their eyes, and gesture with their hands, but don’t make a sound.”

  “I hope that Aubergine summoned us all to force Ratta to reveal the tale—if she remembers it.” Sierra glanced at Warren. “Maybe then we’ll know what to do.”

  Ahead of them Mae pitched forward with a yelp. Sierra closed her eyes and put a hand to her heart.

  “Let’s keep moving,” Warren said.

  This intermediate-skill-level afghan is a patchwork of mitered squares constructed in garter stitch. Approximate finished size is 45" by 50"—8 blocks across and 17 blocks up.

  Get the pattern from PotluckYarn.com/epatterns

  “Hello, and welcome. I’m Miles from nowhere.�
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  CHAPTER 17

  AFTER LEAVING ESMERALDE’S COTTAGE, RATTA drove the mules to the main track and turned them north toward Banebridge. But soon she found herself swinging the wagon wide and slowing it to a stop in the first turnout not swamped with rainwater. Just ahead loomed a thicket of fir trees. She put a hand to her heart. Although the most direct route to Bordertown led north through the western edge of the Copse, she felt Aubergine’s call pulling her farther toward the west, perhaps by way of Coventry. That was an odd way to go, although something felt altogether wrong about taking the main route.

  Ratta had heard unsavory things about the woods. Travelers, familiar with the adage keep close in the Copse, often formed caravans to pass through the tangled forest together, for protection. Rumor had it that the Copse was a living thing, quick to close its roving branches and thorny brambles around those who could not defend themselves. Ratta worried that snarls of roots and vines might foul the spokes of the wagon’s wheels and rip at the mules’ leather harnesses. Worse yet, what if tree limbs tore at Mamie, who lay helplessly in the bed of the wagon?

  Even if she got through the Copse with mere scratches, Ratta did not trust the road beyond. It had been years since she had traveled the main track along the River Runne. It led past Banebridge and through the Forks to the rough town of Woolen Woods before it reached the Southern Gate. Who knew what she would find there?

  She preferred the lesser-trafficked Coventry road to the northwest. She knew that way well. It wound through the foothills below her cabin. Lesser trails leading down from the Western Highlands joined the track, which broadened into a thoroughfare that eventually led to the Western Gate of Bordertown and stockyards beyond in the borough of Butchers Block. Was the preference she was feeling for that route only a matter of comfort and familiarity? Was she simply kidding herself, wanting to take the easy way out? Ratta put a hand to her heart as the call came again, and this time she was sure. Clicking her tongue to the mules, she swung the wagon around and doubled back.

  Almost immediately, her spirits lifted. This far south, the highland route was not much more than a trail that snaked through the river valley, but she would be able to avoid the Copse. Now that she was moving in the right direction, Ratta found that she was less irritated by Aubergine’s summons. The wagon rumbled pleasantly along the two-wheeled track, while the sun arced across the sky, trying to burn through the pink haze. Mamie, however, did not stir, even when Ratta held the rag dipped in sweet tea to the old woman’s lips. Ratta blinked back tears, afraid that Mamie had already drawn her last breath. But what was she to do?

  In the middle of the afternoon, Ratta paused at the turnoff to Coventry, which led to her log cabin in the foothills. Perhaps she should just take Mamie home and lay her to rest her in the old family plot behind the boarded-up farmhouse. She knew she could bury Mamie properly, because she had taken a ceremonial scarf from Esmeralde’s cottage. Hidden among the glass vials of herbs and tinctures that Esmeralde had abandoned just inside the front door, Ratta had found the Land-of-Dreams scarf, sparkly with stars. Ratta had seen such magical raiment before, scarves or shawlettes knit with stars or sometimes with leaf motifs. But she had encountered them only at sick houses, or in the possession of remedy women like Esmeralde.

  The glittery hand knits, patterned with symbols from nature, were used to celebrate passages: from childhood to adulthood, joining in marriage or passing into death. These rare, expensive scarves were dyed with shards of ruby garnet, painstakingly picked from the Trickle by fossickers. The crystals ranged in color from burgundy to deep plum, and resembled drops of dried blood. Heavier than more common pebbles of the same size, these special stones washed up along the banks of the Trickle each spring. According to one of Mamie’s tales, they were carried out of the glacier by an underground river that began deep within the Crystal Caves, beneath the tombs of the ancients.

  Garnet-dyed funeral scarves shimmered in daylight only if they had not yet honored the dead. The glitter vanished as it lofted the departing spirit into the land of dreams. Ratta had witnessed this transformation from death to afterlife more than once. When the knitted garment had fulfilled its ceremonial function, the scarf remained behind, minus its sparkle.

  Ratta had plucked the scarf from Esmeralde’s belongings, hoping that it might ease Mamie into the land of dreams. It winked vividly. She guessed that Esmeralde must have crafted it recently, for folk she planned to meet in Middlemarch. Ratta was tempted to drive home, drape the alpaca scarf around Mamie’s neck, and perform the funeral ceremony herself without involving the Twelve.

  It sounded like a good idea. But as she picked up the reins to turn onto the Coventry Road, the call came abruptly. Instead of pulling at her heart, it slapped her in the face. Ratta shook her head to lessen the sting. “All right,” she growled. “I’ll bring her to you. But you will not like what I have to say.”

  Heaving a sigh, she slapped the reins and continued up the western track. The mules pulled steadily, hauling the wagon gradually upward into the foothills in the strange afternoon light.

  As Ratta had guessed, traffic was thin along this high route. In spring, she had often watched shepherds descending the mountainsides with the flocks they herded back from their winter breeding grounds. The ewes would waddle along, heavy with the lambs that would soon be born in the mild climate of the river valley.

  Riders on horseback or driving wagons were uncommon on this track, because no one wanted to be delayed behind a slow-moving flock of sheep or goats. Luck was with her today. There were no herds clogging the trail. Although this passage was longer than the route through the Forks and up the Trickle, Ratta made good time. At nightfall, she halted at a stagecoach inn, just south of the juncture with the migratory trail from the Western Highlands, and carried Mamie inside.

  The inn’s main room was half filled with fairgoers returning from Middlemarch. Because most of the travelers had stopped for a cold drink or a quick meal before continuing north, Ratta had an easy time renting a room for the night at the top of the stairs. After settling Mamie on a pallet under the eaves, she went downstairs in search of a mug of mulled cider and a bowl of stew.

  At the bar, she found an empty stool along the counter. A fire blazed in the stone hearth, and the lively talk filled the room. Just after her beef barley soup arrived with a heel of rye bread, a slight man in a bright vest rose from the end of the bar to parade before the fireplace. He pulled a penny whistle from his pocket and played a few discordant notes to get their attention.

  “Hello, and welcome. I’m Miles from nowhere,” he boasted, with a flourish. “Neither the Northlands nor the South, the Western Highlands nor the Fisheries of the Far East do I call home. I hail from no place and all places, collecting tales in the way that others gather ripe chestnuts. I am just returned from the Middlemarch Fair with fresh yarns to tell. Folk of the Middlelands, what would you hear?” He took off his hat and held it out. “I’ll regale you with any story for a copper, or two or three.”

  “Sadly, I tire of tall tales,” said a heavyset man hunkered over the bar and holding up a newly minted coin. He wore the garb of the merchant class, a surcoat woven from black cashmere over a dove-colored tunic. His wool leggings, which matched the coat, were tucked into tooled kidskin boots. “Tell a yarn and tell it true.”

  Ratta’s eyes went wide at the southern silver, because coins of the Lowlands were seldom seen this far north. The thin disc of precious metal bore the engraved visage of the Dark Queen. The bard smiled and held out his hand for the coin. The smile revealed rotted teeth, and stretched into a grin that resembled a grimace.

  “My yarns always ring true,” Miles said. “What would you hear? Stories of the Lowlands? Yarns of the Far North?”

  Ratta stared at the coin. Now she could discern a thinly veiled aura of magic hovering over it. “Have you any new tales of the Twelve?” She heard herself ask.

  Taking a sip from his pi
nt of beer, the large man peered down the bar, to see who had spoken. His black beard hid a smile.

  “Funny you should mention the knitting witches,” the bard nodded eagerly, looking from Ratta to the big man. “The main track buzzes with talk of the Twelve. I’ve a new cycle of stories I call Woolgathering. Would you hear one? Or several, perhaps?”

  “I’ve no mood for bedtime stories,” the large man grumbled, his black eyes glittering.

  “No, no, no, it’s all true, every bit of it,” Miles said, with a shake of his head. “Except for the trifles I made up.”

  Satisfied, the large man flipped the storyteller his piece of silver. As the coin arced through the air, Ratta watched a mysterious dark aura chase after it. The bard caught it deftly and slid it into a pocket inside his vest.

  “And so we begin.” Miles cleared his throat and played a merry introduction on his pennywhistle. “This yarn I call “How the Twelve became Twelve.’”

  “Because they were more than eleven,” heckled a tipsy man slouched at a table near the fire.

  The bard ignored him. “There was a time when the Twelve were not yet twelve.” He paused to play a short refrain. “Just novices full of girlish mischief. They came of age at the Potluck during its heyday and desired nothing more than to revel in its colorful glory. Their mistress was none other than the Potluck Queen, Aubergine.” He blew a few high notes. “She wielded the powers of the ancient dye crystals freely, for magic was not yet forbidden in all the lands. As word of her fanciful fiber shop spread, Potluck Yarn became a haven for dyed-in-the-wool believers. Initiates flocked to her like sheep.”

  Here the storyteller paused to improvise a melody. Ratta felt the dark eyes of the large man with the raven beard studying her. There was something familiar and unsettling about him, although Ratta was certain she had never met him. Had he been sitting at the bar when she paid for her room?

  “Many girls desired only to possess whimsical coats and capes that could make the wearer serene, or able to pass unseen or to survive the harshest blizzard, no matter how cold and blinding,” Miles went on, piping on his whistle now and again for emphasis. “Others sought fine work of the hand, or to master the art of melding dye crystal to fiber. Still fewer arrived to apprentice with Aubergine and learn her lore. All were admitted, but only a handful was chosen. This is their story.”